3 Unsung Xbox One Games That Should Definitely Be On Your Radar

Sure – Xbox fans are salivating over thoughts of a new Halo game and Respawn’s Titanfall coming this year. But there are a number of other excellent-looking games on the horizon for Microsoft’s new home console that may well get overlooked. Jonathan Szafran takes a look at three highly promising titles to keep a keen eye on.

Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare

When Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare was announced at last year’s E3, it actually became my reason for buying an Xbox One. I adore the original PvZ, and its cast of quirky characters and transition to becoming a third-person shooter/tower defense made sense to me. The biggest standout for me was how gorgeous the game looks; the environments, zombies and plants are incredibly detailed. Garden Warfare was developed from the ground up on EA’s Frostbite 3 engine, so you know that what makes Battlefield 4 look so good will do the same for this.

Now, this is a multiplayer-only game which may turn some players off, but I remember a little game called Shadowrun that released back in the early days of the Xbox 360. That game multiplayer-only and was a ton of fun to play. Taking control of ether a huge list of different plants or zombies, players can join up with a friend in a co-op mode, or jump straight into multiplayer and take on waves of rivals and then take on a end of level boss. The player cap is 24 so you will have plenty of opponents to annihilate.

Both classes of plants and zombies will have unique sets of skills to choose, from giving Garden Warfare a huge amount of replay value for those who want to experience all this game offers. EA is even making booster packs available as pre-order bonuses at certain retailers, which will give characters boosts and costumes not available in the game alone. We will find out in a little over a month if EA and PopCap Games have another hit on their hands, but for now I will go back to playing PopCap’s other Xbox One hit, Peggle 2.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare arrives on the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Windows in North America on February 18th and February 20th in Europe.

Project Spark

Taking a cue from Playstation’s Play, Create, Share series of games, Microsoft introduced the world to Project Spark – which looks to truly define what it means to create your own game-inside-a-game. Project Spark can be used to create many experiences, including many variety of games and movie clips. Puzzles games, action RPG, and an FPS are just some of the genres I have seen being created in the game’s beta so far. It will be interesting to see what kind of fun the full release will see.

Players can begin Project Spark with a blank environment, choose a developer made pre-rendered level or download a user created game and make your own changes. Using an Xbox controller, keyboard and mouse, Kinect or even Microsoft’s Smartglass app you are given many ways to design a game to your hearts content. Plant life, animals, building structures can be added to the environment as you see fit. Do you want a moat around a castle with a mountain guarding its rear wall? It can all be done on the controller or to make it even easier just say the commands to the Kinect. Giving the world life is a breeze as well, making that rabbit follow you and arming it with a sword is as simple a couple buttons presses on the controller.

Project Spark is a god-game on crack, and looks to put LittleBigPlanet to shame. Being able to manipulate a game down to its minutiae core makes Project Spark one of the most ambitious titles Xbox One’s future releases. If you want to get in on some what Project Spark has to offer sign up for the beta on its Facebook page.

Project Spark does not have an official release date. This years E3 will most likely have more details on its launch and other info.

Sunset Overdrive

Not much is known about Sunset Overdrive, other than what was shown its debut trailer, but what we did see looked like a lot of fun. It’s being developed by Insomniac Games – who have had an amazing pedigree on Playstation for almost two decades now. Spyro and Ratchet & Clank are the hits that built the house of Insomniac Games, and made millions for Sony. Now turning their sights on the Xbox One, this is their first exclusive made for Microsoft’s console.

What is known about Sunset Overdrive is that game’s world has had some sort of disaster that has either killed or turned its population into mutants, and as one of the survivors you have to figure out how to rid your city of this plague. Combining parkour with stylized cartoon graphics and an array of weapons that carry that Insomniac signature. Sunset Overdrive looks to have that same irreverent humor that players of Ratchet and Clank have become accustomed to.

Sunset Overdrive is expected to be released on the Xbox One sometime in the latter half of 2014.

Do you agree with Jonathan’s selection? What unsung games are you most looking forward to?